_ as well as sees it, and derives a complex impression from
it akin to that which the artist felt at the moment when he conceived
it. And in the same way with every work of art worthy of the name,
whether it be a picture, a statue, a poem, a play or a novel, it is
part of its excellence to call forth _activity_ in the mind which
apprehends it.

But we must note that it not only calls forth activity, but
_disinterested_ activity--and by that I mean an activity of the kind
which is especially called forth in the fine arts, and not that which
science, or religion, or ethics might call forth without the aid of
the arts. To preserve the analogy of golf, it may happen--and
generally does happen--that the playing of golf makes the limbs more
elastic and promotes general health. But to take an interest in golf
is not the same thing as to take an interest in the health-producing
results of golf. The true golfer is he who plays golf for its own sake
and without any ulterior end, without thought of consequences,
although consequences of some kind are inevitable. In the same way the
activity called forth in all art, both in the artist at the time of
creation and in the man who is appreciating it, is disinterested; he
is, in proportion as he is an artist or an appreciator of art,
concerned at the moment in nothing but the subject-matter of the
artist, and the treatment; in making or receiving a certain effect,
without thought of the possible practical consequences which may
follow through some inference drawn from the work or some
psychological result attending upon it. This is not a re-statement of
the much-abused theory of "Art for Art's sake," for that theory has
always tended to minimise the importance of subject-matter, and to
represent Beauty as something aloof from the rest of life, instead of
being inseparable from the warp and woof of things social, moral,
intellectual, religious, and physical. When I say that the activity of
the artist is disinterested, I do not mean that he may not be
concerned with any conceivable theme under the sun, but that his
business is to provide us with an experience, and that any end he may
have beyond making that experience vivid and complete is an alien end,
destroying his singleness of purpose, wholly disruptive of his art
and destructive to its energy.

And here we must abandon the analogy of a game of skill, for whereas
golf-balls have no interest except as things to be knocked about, the